208 
ASPIDIACEtE. 
Observation on Lasirvea dilatata or spinulosa. 
N looking more carefully into those 
similarities which I supposed of suffi- 
cient importance to warrant the asso- 
ciation of many forms under the spe- 
cific name of dilatata, I find them 
invariably the concomitants of youth 
rather than the characteristics of per- 
fection, and they become by degrees 
more and more obliterated, as the plants year by year advance 
towards maturity. The differences, on the other hand, so equi- 
vocally developed in seedling or starved individuals, become 
distinctly pronounced in the adult and vigorous ; and a com- 
parison of these, leaves me no choice but to cancel my former 
observations as erroneous, and to consider the names dilatata 
and spinulosa as having been applied to a family rather than to 
a species. Admitting this, it becomes a task of great delicacy 
to select an individual which shall bear alone all the honors of 
either patronymic. Fully appreciating the difficulty of the case, 
I have omitted both these names, and employed others which 
were originally, as now, restricted to one species. 
